Surreal
by 13HoursInWonderland
Summary: Takes place after the story Londerland. Also named for a song on Madness Returns soundtrack. It was a surreal and ludicrous thought. Then again, when had anything inside her mind been sane?
1. Chapter 1

Like the rusty ticking of an old clock one thought painfully geared throw Alice's mind. No matter how absurd it felt, or how unbecoming it sounded disturbed girl couldn't loose what the secretary Asia Irving had stated earlier that day.

"You and Keir should stop dancing around each other like mechanical dolls of a children's music box and fuck like rabbits." At time sentence had been uttered Alice choked on a cup of tea as if liquid had suddenly turned to acid in her throat.

"For heaven's sake, Alice. Don't look so stunned." Asia had left little time for teen girl to recover stable breath, let alone respond, before she elaborated. "You two have been playing a torturing game of flirting sense introductions were made. If you recall I was there upon your first visit to his office. Don't tell me you didn't notice the way he looked up and down your figure? Or how you get a giddy look in your eyes every time he calls you "Miss Alice" or you refer to him with his full name. "Mr. Keir Cheston." The attraction is almost sickening with sweetness. If you don't advance on him soon I'll be forced to lock the pair of you in a room at The Mangled Mermaid until some intimacy is force out!"

"You must be confused." Alice had found herself genuinely fluster for the first time sense her release from Rutledge Asylum nearly two years ago. Her face reddening more then the queen of hearts' tentacles. "Mr. Cheston and I don't see each other in such a manner. In fact I doubt I could ever see any man in such a manner."

"Not seeing and not wanting to see are two completely different things Alice."

Scoffing now, just as she had during conversation, Alice was eager to excuse herself from its presence again. Ready to invent a quick, apologetic justification to rush away from the words Asia had uttered; huffing confusion, irritation, embarrassment, and curiosity on her way.

Yet girl reasoned that would help as much presently as it had after her lunch with Asia Irving. Like her after noon Alice imagined her evening would be filled with perplexing, unrelenting thoughts regarding what had been said. And although Alice was usually quiet apt at handling perplexing, unrelenting thoughts there was something about this particular though she just couldn't comprehend.

Thus Alice found herself, just a few steps away from the lodgings of Candice Avery; a young lady that had often offered to host tea and friendship with Alice when ever she ran into girl visiting their shared attorney's office. Being a proper spoken and gentle girl Alice hoped that Candice would also have a good ear and honest lips. Alice wasn't above asking for help when she encounter something not even her mind could nerve.

Upon reaching Miss Avery's door personal distress soon dropped on her mental priority list, however. Struggled moans and gasps leaked their way through thin wood of tattered building. Paranoia, always happy to surface in Alice's thoughts, spurred teen girl toward doorknob of rented room. Her damaged mind visualizing potential gruesome causes for such groans with more imagination then she felt comfortable with.

Meeting a bit of resistance from apartment threshold Alice managed to summon strength usually only acquirable in wonderland and beat sticking entrance ajar.

"Miss Avery-" Alice only managed two concerned word before image before her stilled her tongue and burned light color to her skin.

Candice Avery's small, modest, and scarcely clothed form rested against one post of a tiny bed. Her arms tight around another person's neck, lips working on leaving marks on a figure even more nude then her. Crimson hair and ivory skin betraying her partner's identity before either Candice Avery or Asia Irving could move to face the scuffling Alice made on her way into room.

"Excuse me." Alice fumbled as two pairs of startled eyes eventually did find her. "I've hurried in on- I seem to have gotten the wrong- I'll be leaving then."

In a rush Alice was back out on the streets of London. She hadn't even managed to realize what exactly she had charged in on, let alone how flushed it had made her when a delicate, but shaky hand grabbed her dress sleeve.

"Alice!" Candice breathed; her face scarlet, iris' large, pupils small and breath narrow. She was presently a bit more clothed, but the way she was holding one uncovered arm forcefully across her chest told Alice the girl was not as decent as she was used to. "I- mean- Miss Liddel. Please- um- let me explain. Come back inside. This might- ah- might take some time. If you don't mind?"

"I- I don't wish to- intrude." Struggling for a proper word to sum up her thoughts Alice vaguely noted the strength that came from Candice's tugs at her dress. Teen girl being pulled back toward apartment she had just stumbled out of soon enough.

"It's alright Miss Liddel. In light of things we're- um- we're finished. Or- well- we are- more concerned with your wellbeing."

"My- my wellbeing? I assure you I'm quiet fine. Why wouldn't I be fine?"

"Because you just walked in on something that is not seen or even heard of every day. Besides-" Asia Irving's voice cut through Alice and Candice's patchy, fuddled conversation with a strong tone and appearance at housings door. Her nakedness now covered with a warn robe. "-You look as flushed and flustered as a Christian girl that hadn't been able to hold her drink the night before and distinctly remembers dancing on tabletops. Come back inside if only to calm your nerves. If it help's I'll secure us some tea."

Somehow Alice found herself back inside Candace's small lodgings a few minuets later being handed a warm drink and trying to figure out exactly what part of Asia's words had coxed her into staying.

"Well then, now that we have made you somewhat comfortable let's go back to being a tad bit uncomfortable. You just caught two women on their way to having sex. How are you doing with processing that?"

Snapping a gaze that had been fixated on her cup to Asia Alice gawked at pair sitting side by side. Her face shading deeper red while whirlwind disrupted her brain. Yet the sensation passed swiftly; her head already diligent and masterful with handling the strange and uncommon.

So her response to inquiry came quick. "The pair of you attempting to bed each other is certainly not something I regard with horror or unease."

"Are you sure?"

"You doubt me?"

"Well the way you rushed off had us a bit concerned." Candice's sentence was quiet, but audible. She was still scarlet and holding herself gracelessly rigid, even after she pulled a shawl over her shoulders.

"I would react that way stumbling upon any intimate situation. Although I'll admit I'm a bit alarmed, I am not stricken. I responded the way I did because it is just not something I was expecting to come across."

"I see. So I assume that is also the reason why you ran off in such a huff this afternoon. When I suggested you and Keir fuck like rabbits?"

As Candice squeaked her own alarm at question tension switched back on inside of Alice. While the girl on Asia's right demanded in a docile yet demanding hue what the other had done Alice's muscles stiffened. Her dulling expression blushing once more.

"Tha- that's not what we are addressing here! Do not change the topic or I really will be horrified into leaving."

"Well, I don't want you doing that again. Thinking about it I probably should have known not to use such wording. There is more behind companionship than "fucking." And knowing the pair of you I wouldn't be surprised if you both found better thrills in other activities and never once rip each other's cloths off. I will not apologize however. I know it's not my place. But if I stayed out of everything I was meant to I wouldn't be where I am today. So tell me Alice, am I really going to have to bar some doors to get you to admit your attraction to Keir?"

"Such an idea is ludicrous." Alice scorned, wishing that Asia could fully understand how absurd her thoughts really were. But to save what little respect and company her life was graced with Alice knew better then to act on that wish. Keir is her cat after all. Her insane cat from her insane internal world somehow manifested in reality as a lawyer. Not even a handful of Rutledge Asylum patients would believe such nonsense.

"The idea possibly could be ludicrous. Yet you already know that London is made up of the ludicrous and daft. Honestly, after all you've been through, of all people, you should be more open to crazy ideas."

As the teen girl listened to Asia soothing tone, as if she were comforting a confused child, Alice watched woman twine arms around Candice's waist. A surprisingly timid and meaningful embrace compared to the holds Alice saw every day on street corners. Asia's affectionate move quit possibly a gesture to prove a point as much as a lover's touch.

And then Alice's mind began to wonder, as it was custom to doing with out permission. She couldn't deign Keir's presence was pleasant. Even upon her first visit to wonderland as a child Alice recalled being ever so thankful to see a friend at the queen of hearts morbid garden party. Then, when she fell down her rabbit hole years later, after trauma and fire, his grin had been a comfort. And although for some unknown reason she most recently found she was in no mood for his twisted answers, Alice still wanted and needed his advice. Whether she was willing to call on it or not.

Most definitely Alice was not a swooning lady dreaming of a gentlemanly lord, the teen girl concluded. But that wasn't all that she had to come to terms with. Working through every dysfunctional gear of her mind; every insane, frightening, and fantastical mental wonders pushed aside Alice realized there was a pattern and support under it all.

Like whipping a chess board clean of its pieces the girl found there was something underneath. Support. Her Cheshire Cat. Through every move and close check he had helped to hold Alice up through all morbid games forced on her. That alone had gained Keir Cheston her respect and appreciation. And maybe now, it had even earned him some endearment as well.


	2. Chapter 2

Alice's cat obviously had not been expecting her. His grin, although as broad as ever, had grown slowly as she entered his private quarters. Dilating eyes becoming curious, unsurprisingly, in a very feline manner. The lanky, attorney's body her cat wore stiffening like a predator catching the sent of either pray or a mate. Keir's torso as pale and naked as a frail creature with mange.

"Miss Alice." He hummed. His eyes, gradually reducing to a more human like size as the doorman that had lead Alice to room dismissed himself. Once door to chamber was closed with the servant's leave Keir's vision sprang from threshold to teen girl standing awkwardly just beyond it.

With their privacy the cat dropped formality's costmary of London officials, allowing his natural demeanor to shine better. His following words flowing with the rhythm of a riddle.

"Why, dear Alice, are you here? Especially at such a late hour? What would the public think if word leaked that a prominent attorney, like myself, were accepting clients at this time of night? When a lawyer should be turning in and not conversing with young ladies in need."

For a moment the teen girl was voiceless. In all honestly she felt as peculiar and bewildered as Keir looked. Why was she here? Inside the house her cat had made his London home, when the stars and the moon had been attempting to shine through city smog for at least an hour.

"The public can believe what they want to believe." Alice forced herself to say something in the hopes that an explanation would come to her if only she could arrange her thoughts thoroughly. To the girl's bafflement and displeasure Keir's lack of completed attire was proving to be a distraction; leaving Alice with a tied tongue, blotched cheeks and a foggy mind. "Beside, it's not inappropriately late in the evening. Not yet."

"Hmm, well who am I to argue about hours with the girl who fabricated the Hatter and his sense of time? Still, an answer to my first inquiry if you please? What are you doing her Alice?"

"I've- just come from an interesting conversation."

"You've come to call on advice then? Which I am happy to give, but most advice can wait till morning, can it not? And if memory serves me correctly you are usually not too fond of my comments, no matter how much you may need them."

Fighting an erg to clench her fingers into fist Alice scolded herself for not thinking this through. Nerves told her she shouldn't have come. Any sane person would have gone home after an exchange like the one she'd had with Asia Irving. A rational girl would have chosen to settle their head, hoping a night's sleep would make more sense of radical presumption about romance. Romance with, in one sense or another, a imaginary cat.

Yet Alice knew she was far from sane. Even as she had left Asia and Candice to salvage their evening, the girl could tell walking about with a lagging gear in an already broken mind would cause trouble.

"I'm here under the suggestion of your secretary, Miss Asia." Alice blathered as she decided on a somewhat sensible reasoning for ending up on his the cat's doorstep. Although Asia had never so much as said "go speak with Keir Cheston," with out the young woman's suggestions teen girl most likely wouldn't have made her way to him that night.

"Asia." Her cat snorted with a glint of understanding to his hue. "She does have an odd way doesn't she? A creature like her can make even one's like yourself think or do oddities. Though I can't imagine what sort of strange thing she might have put in an already, no disrespect, fanciful mind. Hearing you've come from a meeting with Asia, however, makes more sense then anything else I could imagine. The woman can be a bit manipulative without realizing it."

"Agreed." Alice allowed herself a sigh, breath heavy with lack of understanding and frustration.

"Well then," Keir continued after he mumbled what could have been a chuckle, "was a suggesting of a nightly visit to your attorney the only thing Asia put in your mind? Or is there something more to her manipulation? An alternate reason I can owe your company to?"

Every muscle in the teen girl's body felt as if it had tensed at question. How much of her conversation with Asia should she reveal to her cat? If any of it at all? Yes Asia had managed to convince Alice, she could, probably, or in all actuality was, enamored with Keir. That by no means meant he would reciprocate, or even respond kindly. Even if the attorney was a bit mad himself he was still her cat. And what would a cat want with a girl? A potentially psychotic girl?

Shuffling her thoughts for a decent way to respond Alice tried to appear as sure of herself as she was not. Tea green eyes attempting to stay strong and firm oh the cat's manly shape when she would rather be looking anywhere else.

As unanswered inquiry began to hang like a forgotten man on the gallows Alice could sense Keir stirring across the room. He hadn't much moved sense her arrival, though his indicial stiffness had dissolved. And knowing her cat he didn't have the tongue to keep quiet for long. Not while she was around at least.

Soon enough he hinted at movement. Panther like eyes thinned and posture adjusting like a lion ready for a challenge.

As panic started to set in, Alice never having been fond of sudden movement or surprises, unrelated astonishment halted her cat's advance. The way he stepped and how lamp light hit exposed muscles illuminated something Alice found herself openly inquiring to.

"Are those scars?" If she hadn't known any better the teen girl would have called response a flinch. Yet the cat's features were as mischievous and foreboding as ever when he replied.

"You are not the only one that was licked by flames the night of the fire."

"-Don't- don't be ridiculous. I've never seen those before. Not to mention, you weren't present that night. At least not externally."

To Alice's astonishment the Cheshire cat's grin slacked. For the fist time in nearly twelve years of knowing him his usual amusement nearly shattered into a frown. "Huh. Now that you mention it "You've grown quiet mangy cat" was the first sentence between us after that night. I assume then, that you've taken the pattern to my skin as an unusually decorative affect due to a skin condition? Or maybe just another of several creative elements to wonderland?"

Like an exhausted laborer suddenly nipped into action by a fly's bite dull confusion soon spurred Alice's mind into action. Feeling as if she'd just located a piece to a puzzle she hadn't realized she was missing memories neatly placed themselves into an incomplete part of her brain.

Attempting to reach her parents' and sister's rooms through fire, panicked demands as to why Lizzie would not open her door, being told to save herself, and a blast of flames driving Alice back to her own quarters. A blast she recalled hearing, but neither seeing nor feeling.

"You can't be serious? You didn't. You couldn't. Could you?" Even more out of sorts then when she first arrived Alice gasped at her cat, all other concerns misplaced for the moment; her vision taking in ever faint, but solid, imperfection to chest arms and torso. Even if he had coats and shirts to cover such marking when masquerading as Keir Cheston, surely she couldn't have been blind enough to overlook not just his scaring, but also what that meant.

With a fraction of his former grin returning her cat responded with a hue as quiet and strong as a lullaby with lurid origins. "Did I ever say that Keir Cheston was my first attempt at manifesting myself as a man in your reality? Honestly dear Alice, I've said it before. One would think you'd remember, but I'll repeat myself if I have to. What good would a cat have been to you in such a situation?"

"But-" Before she could complete her own thought Alice silenced it. If she started to question the possibilities and impossibilities of wonderland, reality, and how they overlapped she would surely go even more insane. Holding onto that ideal, more firmly then she ever had before Alice brashly made a decision to evicted caution.

"Asia Irving has threatened to lock the pair of us in a room at the Mangled Mermaid until we are intimate with each other."

Alice had never seen, nor really thought it possible, for someone to go white and flush in the same moment until Keir responded with such a look. The girl nearly scoffed laughter at peculiar look.

"Did she?"

"She also suggested we- do something else." Alice flushed; modesty taking up vacancy caution had left. "But I will not repeat that. If you want to know those words you'll have to ask her yourself."

"I-I see. Then, is that what I have to thank for seeing you tonight?"

"-Yes-"

"And- you want my advice?" Like a kitten awed and baffled by an orb of light reflected on a wall Keir was fumbling. And although his rare unsteadiness came off rather amusing in Alice's eyes it did not stop her from matching it.

"No. I actually would like- if you have one of course- your opinion-"

"Need I bring to your attention, fact that you rarely wish to hear my opinion?" As her cat spoke again his tone was firm, but slow. As if he was trying to control a stead with a fowl reputation.

"When- has that ever stopped you?"

"Then my opinion, dear Alice, is up to you."

Normally the girl would have demanded what kind of reply her cat thought him was. Yet his eyes were holding onto hers with growing irises. As if the feline, no the man, were unsure whether he should be preparing for a touch of affection or a slap of antagonism. And although his grin had steadily been returning to its familiar sight Alice somehow felt as if she currently held a power to either feed his expression or starve it.

"-I think-" She struggled to locate her voice as Keir continued to keep her gaze locked with his. "-I think- I'm curious. If you are willing."

Like an overfed house cat that had just contented himself with a delectable meal of fish and cream Keir smiled at Alice. His hue almost purring when he spoke.

"Well then Miss Alice Liddel. Would you care to join me for tea and tarts tomorrow afternoon?"

* * *

Thank you all for reading! Maybe I'll write a fallow up to this later. (a follow up to a squeal?) And please comment if you have time! Thankies again!


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